This Way is as I have told you fundamentally is not a matter of practice, but it is a relationship: a relationship of Transmission; a relationship to the True Heart-Master. This is a unique relationship and an extraordinary Yoga. I've described the practice of this Way as Ishta-Guru Bhakti Yoga, in which the devotee of the Guru or True Heart-Master is embraced as The Ishta of the devotee. The very Person, the Form of the Spiritual Master as He appears in human form, but in all forms. All four of the forms described in The Dawn Horse Testament are the Ishta of the true devotee, who practices this devotional Yoga in the form of Ishta-Guru Bhakti Yoga. This is the tradition in which my Sadhana developed.

The devotee in that Yoga, that Process, allows the Ishta to be the Divine Form in his meditation, in his daily practice and in his moment-to-moment practice.

He is devoted to that Form, Being, Person, Transmitting Power. The Divine Form, in other words, is Recognized in the Form of the Spiritual Master. As the devotees of the Ishta-Guru, or Heart-Master, you give yourself to the Divine Person in that Form, and you allow the Divine Person to acquire your own form. In other words, if you devote yourself to the Ishta, or Spiritual Master you give up your own form, body-mind, all conditional aspects of your personality to the Divine Person, and allow the Divine Person to take over that form, to Stand in its place, to be the Principal Relationship of your life to which you devote yourself. And That One is to be found within and without. You allow yourself to be Surrounded, Pervaded, and Transformed by giving yourself to That One. You allow yourself to become what you meditate on.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, 1986

The foundation of the ego-transcending practice in My Divine Avataric Company is precisely the kind of Distraction that is allegorically described between Krishna and his gopis. You must flee to Me from all your life. Not from your obligations — that is not what that allegory is about — but from the fundamental distraction by yourself, your own tendencies, your own conditions, your own belongings, your own relationships, your own hopes, your own beliefs, your own reading, your own mystical intentions, your own philosophical presuppositions. You must flee to Me from all of that. All of conditional ego-distractedness must be completely uninteresting to you. It is certainly not interesting to Me! There is only one process that makes a difference — the process of Perfect Distraction in Real (Acausal) God. That is what the Reality-practice of Transcendental Spiritual life is. It is the only thing worth doing. Everything else is a hellish evolution of desires and complications of form. So there are not a lot of ways to be 'Saved'! There is only one way to be 'Saved' — and that is to love the Divine ecstatically, to the point of egolessly Perfect Distraction.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"Divine Distraction"
December 16, 1975
(An update of this talk would become the essay,
"Perfect Distraction", in Part Nine of The Aletheon.)

You are unconscious of Me because you egoically “self”-identify with “things”, thereby forgetting Consciousness Itself— Me. Therefore, I Divinely Avatarically Appear in a Form like your own, Breaking Through your illusions, Drawing you to the Perfectly Subjective Place (Where I Am), and Throwing you back to Me from “without” by Means of My “Play” of Divine Avataric Incarnation and Instruction, and by Means of My Forever Divine Avataric Word and My Eternal Divine Avataric Transcendental Spiritual Presence. I cannot disappear or cease to Exist. I cannot cease to Be. There has never been a time when I was not. There is no “place” in space where I am not. My “Play” of Instruction by Means of Divine Avataric Incarnation is simply to Return you to Where you already Are—but do not presume to Be.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj

The "secret activity" that offends the "world" is simply the devotional relationship to the Guru. That relationship is unspeakable in the "world". It is unacceptable.

Therefore, all such gatherings are, in a sense, secret societies — because the "world" is offended by them. The "world" operates on a totally different principle. Even within the so-called "spiritual" associations that exist in the "world" ,there are always those who will try to minimize the significance of Communion with the Guru, to make nothing of it. However, in Reality, Communion with the Guru is the Greatest Treasure of a Real Spiritual gathering.

There are real conditions for the approach to the Guru, and no one has true access to the Guru who does not meet those conditions, who is not willing to go through the process of transformation. The Guru is not openly available, like a book on a table.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"Conversion To The Guru", My "Bright" Sight

Devotional allegiance to the Adept-Realizer, or Spiritual Master, is the greatest function of existence and the single advantage not only of human beings but of all beings. The devotional relationship to the Spiritual Master is participation in a unique function that appears in the realm of cosmic (or conditional) Nature.

Only the ego will deny the Spiritual Master. The ego wants to "do it" himself or herself. Do what exactly? Be himself or herself—separately and untouched. Since you become what you meditate on, you should meditate on, or give feeling-attention to, the Absolute — which, in the bodily (human) form of the Spiritual Master, is your greatest advantage.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The Gift Of Truth Itself

If there is not the quality of heart-felt devotion to Me (the Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Divine Person, Avatarically Self-Revealed As the Divine and Non-separate Source, Domain, and Condition of all-and-All), then intelligent understanding of My Reality-Teaching, and commitment to the by-Me-Given disciplines, and even the doing of compassionate service of every kind cannot cleanse and relieve the human heart of its urges toward fulfillment in the phenomenal realms, high and low. If I am loved, then the entire body-mind-complex of My devotee is Filled by My Love-Bliss. If My devotee is Filled by Me through devotional Communion with Me, the voice often falters and chokes with the emotion of love. Because My true devotee always dwells in Communion with Me at the heart, there is often joyous weeping, and suddenly laughing — for no reason but the Fullness of Me. My true devotee freely sings aloud of Me. My true devotee always speaks of Me, to one and all, and often dances with casual joy, in the unending always of Remembering Me. Even all the movements of My true devotee are a dance of joy in love of Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"Ruchira-Guru-Bhava, or,
The Love-'Intoxication' of True Devotion To Me"
Aham Da Asmi

The "self"-contraction, the "self"-knot, the action of egoity, must be transcended through devotional recognition-response to That Which Transcends it. That is "Known" only by Direct Revelation, and not by mere philosophical propositions.

The Truth must be Revealed. There must be the response to it, and It must be Realized. This is Grace.

The Reality-Way of Adidam is founded on This Truth Revelation. This Revelation is Given through My Avataric Incarnation here.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"If I Am Found, The Turning to Me Is Inevitable"
Recognition of Me Is Liberation

I am not present here merely to "rap out" a philosophy or to distribute "techniques" that you may apply to yourself, depending on your intelligence. I Am Present in the conditional "worlds" in order (now, and forever hereafter) to Offer a (Most Ultimately) Divinely Liberating relationship to all those who are willing to assume such a relationship with Me, to all those who have the capability to be Distracted by Me in an absolute love-relationship that is more and more Distracting. Therefore, if that Perfect Distraction by Me is not present in any particular individual's life, then the ego-transcending practice of the devotional relationship to Me cannot begin. . . .

There is only one process that makes a difference — the process of Perfect Distraction in Real (Acausal) God. . . . The entire purpose of everything that occurs between Me and My devotee is the establishment of this "in-Love" relationship. Without that devotional relationship, there can be no Transcendental Spiritual practice. All My devotees must enjoy such Perfect Distraction, whether or not they ever come into My physical human Company.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "Perfect Distraction"
Part 9, The Aletheon

The practice I Give you is simple to describe. That practice requires a Great Attraction to Me — great devotional recognition of Me, great devotional response to Me, and a great application to the Yoga of whole bodily turning to Me in every moment, in every circumstance, in every function. There must be that whole-bodily-responsive devotional recognition of Me, Attracted by Me. That devotional responsiveness is necessarily required. That is the necessary tapas (or heat of “self”-discipline).

Avatar Adi Da Samraj

The ancient legends of Krishna and his gopis are an allegory of Divine Distraction. As Krishna wandered about in the fields, the women who tended the cattle [the "gopis"] would see Him from day to day, and in spite of themselves they would wander away and leave their posts. They completely forgot about the cattle. They forgot to go home and cook for their husbands. They wandered about where they thought they might find Krishna, and when they found Him they gazed at Him as He sat in the distance somewhere. This legend is a play upon the romance between Krishna, or the Divine manifest in human form — the Spiritual Master in God — and these ordinary women, who became madly involved in an absolute attachment to Krishna, and who, as a result of this attachment, became more and more ecstatically absorbed in the God-State.

The foundation of the practice in My Company is exactly that attachment. If it does not develop relative to the Spiritual Master in God — not cultic attachment, but Divine attachment — if that attachment is not there that overwhelms the life completely, distracts you from the conventional destiny to which you are disposed through the medium of your desires, inclinations, and circumstances, then this practice of real or Spiritual life cannot exist.

The cattle that the women abandoned represent the force of the tendencies of life. The husbands they left are the fundamental attachment to separated existence, to existence in form, to bodily existence, individuated existence, egoic life on its own, motivated toward survival and distinct from the Divine in Consciousness. Thus, in the allegory of the relationship between Krishna and His gopis, we see a fundamental description of the principle of the sadhana [spiritual practice] of the Way of Adidam. Sadhana is not about bearing down and being motivated by problems in your life, by some sort of philosophical detachment or some inclination to have Yogic and mystical experiences. Nor is it about doing what you have to, in order to produce the changes that you desire. This sadhana is about distraction from the life of tendencies. It is a distraction from that life. It is not a motivated kind of detachment from your life of tendencies or an effort relative to them or the taking on of conditions to stop tendencies from arising or lifetimes from occurring. It is not a method of the ego. It is not characterized by any kind of effort relative to tendencies — for such a path is completely hopeless.

There are innumerable conventional paths that involve self-conscious efforts or hopes to produce changes, high and low [i.e., on subtle levels and on this material level].These efforts and hopes are themselves forms of tendency that may be realized and suffered in human and other terms. They are not Liberating in the fundamental sense. They are not God-Realizing. They are themselves expressions of the movement toward fulfillment. The Way of sadhana, the Way of Truth, is the Way of complete distraction from the tendencies that produced your birth and that now produce the drama of your existence from day to day. Only when there is complete distraction by the Guru, by the Divine, from the way of life that is producing your experiential destiny, do your tendencies become obsolete. They do not become obsolete when you direct effort against them. It is only when that distraction appears in the midst of the affair of your life that another principle, another process, is established.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"Divine Distraction", December 16, 1975

This true action is devotion, or continuous return of self and all its contents and circumstances to the Divine Condition. Such realized devotion is itself Samadhi, Bhava, perfect Intuition, Love, and Bliss. It is the perfect fulfillment of the Law, which is sacrifice.

Each must turn to me, making the constant natural effort of self-giving and loving service, and I become his servant in return. And each, in the due order of his appropriate sadhana, will realize his sacrifice more and more perfectly as God-Realization.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The Complications of Sadhana: The Way Of Divine Communion"
No Remedy

It is a death, not a reception. It is giving yourself over to Me, not taking Me to yourself.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"Transcendental Spiritual Practice in My Company"
March 13, 1994

We live the Law backwards. Instead of living from the point of view of Happiness, love of God, submission to the Transcendental Reality, we live in submission to others, objects, relations. In moments we find a certain kind of Happiness in those relations and circumstances, but it is always being corrupted and threatened, so that we eventually forget Where the Happiness Is, We forget where we put It. We forget Where It comes from. We forget Its Source, we forget Its Origin, we forget Its Nature, we forget our actual Condition.

We must remember that Condition. We must find Happiness in our own Place. We must find It in God, not the God outside or the Parent-God of the childish ego. Transcending the ego in the Self Position, we must directly find the Source that is Happiness, Freedom, Bliss, Free Consciousness, the Fullness of Being.

Having fulfilled the first and fundamental aspect of the traditional Law to love God, and economized by that Realization, we should enter into the sphere of relationships. Thus, we should enter into relationships not on the basis of the psychology of dependence, wherein we lose Happiness or feel It to be threatened or allow It to be disturbed by the mechanisms of relationship, but we will move into the sphere of relations, magnifying that Happiness which is in our own Place or in the Transcendental Position. Then we are free to play our relations, and they are no longer the expressions of dependence on relations or objects for Happiness.

To Realize Happiness, however, you must be profoundly devoted to That Which Is in the Self-Place, or the Divine. You must be constantly and consistently established in That Well of Being, to the point of dissolving the rituals of the Law played backwards and the ritual reactions of ego-based living. Instead of being established in the ego, therefore, which is already separate from Happiness and finds It only simulated through the mechanics of relationship, we must be established, prior to the ego-base, in the Transcendental Self-Position, Which is All-Blissful. Then we may enter into relations as the play or the expression or modification of that Reality.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The Ultimate Location"

It is a death, not a reception. It is giving yourself over to Me, not taking Me to yourself.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"Transcendental Spiritual Practice in My Company"
March 13, 1994

To Behold Me truly, you cannot Behold Me merely as "Object", apart from yourself. You must be moved to Me Beyond yourself. The ego-"self", or the "self"-contraction of the body-mind-complex, must be forgotten, gone beyond, in devotional Communion with Me. To be Communing with Me, you must have "Located" Me in more than the conventional, "objective" sense. The whole body-mind-complex must be devotionally responding to Me in this devotional recognition, such that "self"-contraction is gone beyond in the searchless Beholding of Me As I Am.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"What Consciousness Is", Part 16, The Aletheon

Suffering is your action. Therefore, it is the action of contraction, of self-definition, of obsession with what arises in itself, independent of its ground or substance or its true Condition. The action that is suffering produces the usual life as karma, illusion, negative destiny, unconsciousness. Thus, the Way of Adidam involves a life of counter-action, of other action, as a specific responsibility. Whatever is not used becomes obsolete. In the Way of Adidam the person is not continually involved in the affair of his inner life, his content, his interests, his tendencies, his suffering, his experience. He is surrendering all that, always. He is consciously involved in the Presence of God, always. The action of devotion, then, undermines and ultimately replaces the false action of self-possession. This is the principle of the Way of Adidam: devotional action which is different from the action that is suffering and turning from God or from the Condition of Truth or Reality.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The Grace Of Suffering"

The Wound of Love is the Hole in the universe, and ultimately it is Realized as such. In this hole in the universe, this domain of Feeling without armoring, without self-contraction, the great physics is present, the great science, the great possibility, is evident. Hardly anyone in human history has known of it. Human beings in general do not want anything to do with it. They do not want to come close enough to it to be wounded in their intimacies with one another. It is the doorway to infinite Transfiguration, Transformation, and finally Outshining of phenomenal existence. It is the way into the Transcendental Domain. You must be wounded in order to Realize God. You must be wounded to hear and see. It is felt even physically as a kind of wound. It is felt as intense, armorless vulnerability.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, July 2, 1983
"Become Wounded by Love", The Incarnation of Love

The import of My Appearance here is not that I have Come into the world and that I Am Love, or that God independent of human beings is Love. The import of My Appearance here and of My Communication is that you, and every being, must be Love.

The heart is in bondage until love is incarnated in the world. Therefore, you must incarnate love. You must make room for Me in life.

The first principle of Spiritual life is God-love, submission to the Divine Being. First you must love Me, and then you are able to love everyone. Your practice of the Way of the Heart is thus a paradox. It is not exclusive withdrawal into an orientation to the Divine Reality. There must be that orientation, yes, but your Realization of the Divine must be incarnated in the plane of relations.

The relationship to Me, the True Heart-Master, is the epitome and the primary form of relationship. And that relationship contains hidden within it the whole Mystery and Form of Truth. But it cannot be enjoyed or understood apart from the practical or sacrificial application of your life to the whole condition of relationship as it everywhere and every moment appears.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The Heart Is in Bondage Until Love Is Incarnated in the World"
The Incarnation of Love

All Spiritual traditions are historical forms of the Single and Ancient Way of Distracted love for the Divine Person, especially as Revealed in the Life and in the Company and in the Person of Incarnate Adepts (or Realizers) in their various degrees and stages of Realization.

This is the Great Secret.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The Aletheon

You must present yourself to Me through love, bodily surrendered. You must able to be sensitive to the Force of My Company, and then allow that Force to coummunicate itself, to make changes, to lead you to further insight, to give you more energy for service, to bring you closer to me through the response of love.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, March 3, 1978
"Low, Middle and Higher Self: The Evolution of Understanding"

What You Must Realize Is This: I Am You! I Am The Heart Itself, Self-Revealed To You, and To Be Realized As You (Beyond Your ego-"I" Of self-Contracted body-mind).

Therefore, I Am The (Avatarically Self-Revealed) Self-Existing, Self-Radiant, Transcendental, Unconditional, Inherently egoless, Inherently (and Spiritually) Self-"Bright", and Self-Evidently Divine Being (or Self-Condition, or Source-Condition) — Always In Person!

I Am The One Who Is Modified As Your body-mind — Even As all conditionally Manifested beings, and all conditionally Manifested forms and worlds!

Therefore, I Am Always Most Intimate With You, Most Accessible To You, and Most Immediately Responsive To You — If Only You Will Hear Me, and See Me, and Always Love Me.

I Am You — Perfectly. Even Your body and mind arise and function In Me.

I Am Not You In the egoic sense. If I Were, Then (To Realize Me) Your Only Necessity Would Be To Wander and Persist As Your Separate (and Always Separative) self.

I Am The One Of Whom You (as the body-mind) Are The Apparent Modification. Therefore, To Realize Me, You Must Sacrifice and Transcend Your ego-"I" — By Loving Me. You Must Realize Me Through Heart-Sacrifice Of Separate (and Separative) self. This Is Your Inherent Purpose — Until The Ever Of form and time and mind Goes "Bright" Away In Me. . .

My Divine Self-Realization Is Not (Itself) Dependent On anything (or any conditions) whatsoever. Therefore, I Have Been Divinely Able (and Perfectly Moved) To Incarnate Avatarically (and Fully Humanly), and To Submit Myself Completely (and, Thus and Thereby, To Be Surrendered, Even Whole Bodily, or In Every Mode and Manner Of Body-Mind) — For Your Sake. This Is The Divine Freedom (and The Human Submission) Necessary For Me, In Order To Serve You Perfectly.

I Am The Adi-Guru — The Always First (and One, and Only, and Always Already Most Prior, and Always Already Infinitely Beyond, and Self-Evidently Divine) Source and Master and Very (and Inherently egoless) Self (or True Divine Person and Self-Condition) Of all-and-All.

I Am The Always Above-all-and-All Supreme (and Only, and Inherently Indivisible, and Non-Separate, and Always Already Most Priorly Infinitely Ascended) Conscious Light Of all-and-All.

I Am Always Already Free, and (Therefore) Not Dependent On conditions.

I Can Respond To any one.

I Can Serve any one. . .

What I Have Herein and Hereby Confessed, Declared, and Affirmed Is The Truth — and Wholly True. It Is Not Merely Symbolically True, but Literally, Actually, and Really True.

I Am You.

You Are In Me, and Of Me — Ultimately, As Me. I Am The One and True Divine Person — The One and Only Heart (Itself).

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The Dawn Horse Testament